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Speaker 1: We are hearing that residents are leaving Catherine in droves

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Speaker 1: due to break ins and crime, and that it's driving

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Speaker 1: rental vacancies up to rates which haven't been.

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Speaker 2: Seen in years.

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Speaker 1: It is in quite a contrast, I think you'd have

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Speaker 1: to say to what we've been talking about towards the

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Speaker 1: end of last year, where there had been issues.

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Speaker 2: We've spoken to the teachers union.

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Speaker 1: About it, where people were actually not able to find

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Speaker 1: rental properties to move into in Catherine. But joining me

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Speaker 1: on the line to shed some light on the situation

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Speaker 1: is Alison Ross.

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Speaker 2: Hi, Allison, good morning.

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Speaker 3: How are you, Kenny?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Really good.

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Speaker 1: Now Allison, you are indeed the owner of Elder's real

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Speaker 1: estate in Catherine. What are you saying with the Catherine

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Speaker 1: rental market at the moment?

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Speaker 3: Oh?

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Speaker 4: Look, every year, end of the year, like with Darwin,

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Speaker 4: you know, your transient population, end of the school year,

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Speaker 4: end of contracts, people do move down defense. So quite

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Speaker 4: commonly we had a lot of people that are moving

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Speaker 4: out towards the end of the year. But it just

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Speaker 4: sort of hitting that sort of mid or some pretty

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Speaker 4: much all of December, a lot of chants were breaking lease,

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Speaker 4: meaning leaving earlier than their initial term just due to

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Speaker 4: because of the crime rate. You know, we've broken into

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Speaker 4: so many times. We've had enough where either moving.

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Speaker 3: Out of town to we're living, moving to the other

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Speaker 3: side of town, or yeah, just had enough of the territory,

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Speaker 3: we're heading out of here. So it's quite a shock

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Speaker 3: and obviously something that we couldn't plan for in our business.

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Speaker 3: So we've got pretty hard with a lot of chance

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Speaker 3: moving that is hard.

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Speaker 2: Like it's hard to sort of hear as well.

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Speaker 1: Isn't it that people are reaching the point where they're

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Speaker 1: leaving because of the crime. I mean, it's one thing

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Speaker 1: to sort of move suburbs, but to leave the territory altogether.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, no, definitely. And I've obviously been up here for

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Speaker 3: quite some time and an advocate and.

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Speaker 4: Pushing for the liveability and how great it is to

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Speaker 4: live up here, and we have done a lot of

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Speaker 4: push for that.

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Speaker 3: And even then, we've sort of got so many jobs.

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Speaker 3: So it's sort of like the housing, accommodation and employment

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Speaker 3: all ties in hand in hand, and so well, it's

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Speaker 3: not because there's no jobs around. There's plenty of work around.

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Speaker 3: People are just leaving to these other unfortunate reasons. So

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Speaker 3: it's sort of a push to sort of get people back,

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Speaker 3: and that then knock on effects with having plenty of

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Speaker 3: work around when we do have these break ins, it's

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Speaker 3: getting the repairs done. And obviously over Christmas you can

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Speaker 3: imagine a lot of contractors had sort of shut down

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Speaker 3: or scaled back, so now trying to get work done

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Speaker 3: on any damages. Even our business that was hit. We

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Speaker 3: spoke back in early December, we still haven't fully got

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Speaker 3: back on board with that. We still have vehicles out

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Speaker 3: of action. So yeah, the cost and timing from the

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Speaker 3: break ins just for a bit of fun for so

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Speaker 3: few people is not fair.

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Speaker 2: It's not fair at all.

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Speaker 1: With the rental listings, how many rental listings are there

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Speaker 1: to sort of, you know, to quantify the way that

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Speaker 1: the you know, the way that the market is looking

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Speaker 1: at the moment.

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Speaker 4: Well, I guess generally and looking at just the main

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Speaker 4: websites for all agencies, you know, and the moment until today,

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Speaker 4: sixty odd rentals available.

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Speaker 3: Generally you'd see that around thirty over Christmas, so that's

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Speaker 3: sort of doubled of what it normally would be. I

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Speaker 3: guess just before COVID it got down to four only available,

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Speaker 3: was it was tight in that push last year, a

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Speaker 3: lot of jobs around, a lot of good houses or

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Speaker 3: a lot of houses and all aspects were taken up.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: But yeah, so sort of double what would normally expect

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Speaker 3: to see on the market now than we would in

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Speaker 3: previous use.

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Speaker 1: And so how does that kind of you know, compared

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Speaker 1: to a month ago. I know that you said, you know,

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Speaker 1: over that Christmas period there's always a bit of change.

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Speaker 2: So I guess, how does it compare.

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Speaker 3: In terms of the luck let's say to it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, like December, it sounds as though we're you know,

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Speaker 1: most places were kind of rented out in December, but

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Speaker 1: then you started to see that transition or started to

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Speaker 1: see people shifting out.

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Speaker 3: That's right. So I said, is that double what would

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Speaker 3: normally expect? Is this another year and obviously we'll see

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Speaker 3: then start to see some prices being impacted because prices

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Speaker 3: had been creeping up. We now have some houses that

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Speaker 3: are set or in a break lee situation where we're

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Speaker 3: going to obviously see some return to Okay, what are

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Speaker 3: we going to do to negotiate that down or I

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Speaker 3: mean I've been communicating with landlord is about security. What

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Speaker 3: we've got to put into properties to try and make

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Speaker 3: the tenant feel safe.

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Speaker 2: Allison, It's hard, Like it's really hard, isn't it?

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Speaker 1: Because I know you are a huge advocate for the

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Speaker 1: Big Rivers region.

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Speaker 2: I know.

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Speaker 1: Well, look, I'm a big advocates for you know, for

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Speaker 1: the top end, for the Northern Territory in general. But

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Speaker 1: this situation with crime at the moment, it's having such

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Speaker 1: a big impact and it's making it really you know,

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Speaker 1: like it is making it really difficult.

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Speaker 3: Oh, definitely, definitely. As I said previously about business confidence,

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Speaker 3: you know, we all do get behind each other and

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Speaker 3: help each other out and catter and that it's a

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Speaker 3: great thing of our resilience. He's sort of, Yeah, We've

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Speaker 3: going to really sit down and work out a plan

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Speaker 3: of how we can sort of work through this because

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Speaker 3: we want people to come and today there's so much work,

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Speaker 3: so many opportunities in the region. We need to sort

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Speaker 3: of encourage those families to come and stay, yeah, not

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Speaker 3: leave now leave?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? And what like, what are locals saying to you

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Speaker 2: at the moment?

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Speaker 3: People can if everyone is frustrated, it's a solution that's communicating.

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Speaker 3: I mean, I'm talking to a few different industry people

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Speaker 3: across all areas, a few different people in government. I'm

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Speaker 3: not getting into politics, so I just sort of give

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Speaker 3: sort of opinion and thoughts. We're just going to see

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Speaker 3: what we can do. But certainly what I see in

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Speaker 3: the media, it can't just be isolated regions a whole

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Speaker 3: the territory. This needs to be addressed. It's seen that

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Speaker 3: happened before. Change has happened to a regional area. It

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Speaker 3: just goes up and down the track. So we need

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Speaker 3: to sor be looking at the territory as a whole.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, hey, how long has it been since you've sort

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Speaker 1: of seen vacancy rates at the level that they're at

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Speaker 1: right now?

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Speaker 3: I would say probably close to three years.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, right, so it four.

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Speaker 3: Years, Yeah, it was, it was fairly strong, yes, probably, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 3: at least three to four years.

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Speaker 4: Obviously we've had a lot of housing built up building

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Speaker 4: in Catherine, which is attributed to more accommodation in general.

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Speaker 4: But this amount of vacancies, which, as I said, when

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Speaker 4: it was previously this height, we didn't have as much

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Speaker 4: employment around. Yeah, now we do have lots of jobs

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Speaker 4: and now I've got lots of houses, so come on in.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's it. Isn't it.

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Speaker 1: We want everybody, you know, you still like, we're still

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Speaker 1: all advocates for people moving to the Northern Territory, but

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Speaker 1: but you know, we've got to make sure that we

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Speaker 1: sought this issue. Otherwise it is really holding us back.

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Speaker 1: That's how I feel, and I think that, you know,

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Speaker 1: we've got to we've got to lance the boil. We've

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Speaker 1: got to sort it out otherwise we're going to continue

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Speaker 1: to struggle.

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Speaker 3: And people that are moving here are looking at the media.

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Speaker 3: You know, Oh, there's a job opportunity in the territory.

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Speaker 3: Let's have a look look at a few social media sites. Oh,

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Speaker 3: look at the issues here, the issues there? Do we

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Speaker 3: want to make that move? How do we now overcome that?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's it.

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Speaker 1: And I think the only way to realistically overcome it

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Speaker 1: is to sort the issue because we can sort of say, oh, look,

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Speaker 1: it's you know, it's negativity on social media, or it's

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Speaker 1: or it's media coverage, you know, and rightly so, it

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Speaker 1: is media coverage.

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Speaker 2: But the fact is, no one's making it up, are they.

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Speaker 1: It's you know, it's real issues that are happening that

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Speaker 1: even you, as a business owner are having to deal with.

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Speaker 3: That's it. I think people can see some action happening. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: then we should overcome up for sure.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, Allison. I really appreciate you having a

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Speaker 1: chat with us this morning. It's it is really interesting

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Speaker 1: to hear that those vacancy rates, you know, that they

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Speaker 1: that you're talking sort of sixty comparatively to it usually

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Speaker 1: being around the thirty market does sound like a massive,

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Speaker 1: you know, a massive change. So I hope that we're

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Speaker 1: able to get this issue sorted and get more.

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Speaker 2: People coming back to the Northern Territory.

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Speaker 3: That's it. We'll keep keep an eye up for sure.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, good on you. Thanks so much for your time

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Speaker 2: this morning. I appreciate it.

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Speaker 3: Thanks Kelly,